کتابی که در عرض چند ساعت خوانده شد!

ونه‌گات طنز پردازی نابغه است.
دیدگاهی چنین استوار و نگاهی چنین عمیق و طنزآمیز در سن ۸۳ سالگی دو سال قبل از مرگ به معجزه بیشتر شبیه است تا به واقعیت!
نگاهی ضد جنگ و دوستدار طبیعت و تا حدودی ضد تکنولوژی دارد.
فوق‌العاده زیبا و خواندنی بود.
این کتاب سلسله مقالاتی است که در یکی از روزنامه‌های آمریکایی چاپ شده در سال ۲۰۰۵
قسمت داستان‌نویسی با رسم منحنی‌های سینوسی و بخش نامه‌های رسیده واقعاً عالی بودند.

A Man Without a Country is a collection of often very funny and angry essays about the state of the planet (and maybe particularly, the US) published in 2005, when Kurt Vonnegut was 83. Two years later he was dead. Vonnegut holds up Mark Twain as a fellow humorist who found a way to help us laugh through terrible world experiences, though acknowledging that even Twain wrote angrily about things in this country he could not possibly laugh at. Vonnegut writes about the purpose of humor, as a way of dealing with anxiety and fear, and helping people better face these emotions, and the world. He also identifies some things he cannot find a way to laugh much about, such as Bush and the invasion of Iraq. And the fact that Reagan and Bush play a misdirection game in creating anti-drug campaigns, when the drug the planet most craves is oil, which we all know very well is destroying life on this planet.

Vonnegut's political hero was the socialist Eugene Debs, whom he often writes about in these books, knowing political memory is short. But he sees no real hope for thinkers such as Debs to save the world. He thinks the rich, the corporations, the politicians know we are doomed and just don't care. So there is bleak honesty in this book I appreciate.

I miss Vonnegut, and other social satirists such Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, though thankfully, we have their books and appearances preserved on YouTube.

I was so happy to find this book at one of my online libraries! I’ve read about everything he’s written, but long ago. He’s one of the few authors who could ever make me laugh out loud. This book of short essays covered a number of topics such as his life, his parents, his children, Kilgore Trout (of course), his fear that humans have destroyed our planet and his total disdain for the people who were then in office. “I’m going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes, for a billion bucks! Starting when I was only twelve years old, I have never chain smoked anything but unfiltered Pall Malls. And for many years now, right on the package, Brown and Williamson have promised to kill me. But I am now eight-two. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon.” I can’t even imagine what he would think of The Big D and all of his cronies who are currently in office! I thoroughly enjoyed this short book. It reminded me of how much I loved his writing. Guess I’m going to have to find all my Vonnegut novels and dust them off to re-read.

This was the first work that I ever read of Kurt Vonnegut and was left craving more! He has a realistic approach combined with a slight dash of pessimism .

"The last thing i ever wanted is to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon"

کتاب در دسته ی ناداستان قرار میگیره.اگر به طور خلاصه بگم،اعتقادات
و افکار پیرمردی رو میخونید که دیگه امیدی به هیچی نداره.سوال برام پیش اومد که چرا فقط از یک فرزندش حرف میزنه :)) برای تحلیل شخصیت ونه گات بهم خیلی کمک کرد.چون درگیر تحلیل سلاخ خانه ام.به نظرم این همه حمله کردن گاهی خسته کننده میشه اما طنز نویسنده شمارو پیش میبره.اون قسمتی که میگه زمین داره از سیستم ایمنیش استفاده میکنه تا آدم هارو از بین ببره رو هممون داریم تجربه میکنیم.با اعتقاداتش موافقم.فرقی نداره چه حکومت و سیاستی در راس باشه.ما همیشه محکومیم به وسیله بودن.اما فکر کنم اگر ونه گات ایران زندگی میکرد عمرش به این سن نمیرسید که بخواد آخرین کتابش رو چاپ کنه. به هر حال ازش لذت بردم.اگر ناداستان دوست دارید بد نیست بخونیدش.قبلش به خودتون قول بدین کمتر افسرده بشین:))

On April 11, 2007 ,at around 6am, I awoke to NPR news announcing that Kurt Vonnegut had passed away.
Normally I would just go back to sleep, but I popped out of bed and went to my computer to confirm that it was really true (because you know how NPR gives false information all the time and shit).
Then my next thought was to go to Half Priced books and buy every Kurt Vonnegut book there.
So I set my alarm for 9am so I could make sure I was there when they opened the doors because I didn't want to have to wrestle anybody for those books. (Sometimes I am not always the most rational person)
I was lucky enough to find a 1st edition of this book.
That evening I read it and basically cried through the whole thing. I remember saying to my dad, while sucking back snot and tears, "There is no one else to replace him. Nobody thinks they way he did."
I wanted to take Kurt Vonnegut and package him up and preserve him forever. What can I say, I'm the Jeffrey Dahmer of the literature world.
But how selfish of me, right? The man was 84 for christ's sake.

This is probably the worst "review" ever, because it is not really a review.
Who am I to review Kurt Vonnegut?
I'm no one, just another mediocre mind in this world.
And all I know that a someone great is now gone.

it’s ridiculous how this planet is evolving backwards.

n"Life is no way to treat an animal." (123)

A Man Without a Country is a somewhat loose collection, thematically speaking, of writings and reflections by Vonnegut on everything from literature to sex and politics. It is written by a man near the end of life—Vonnegut was 82 at the time—reflecting on his life and career as well as the state of the world generally and the United States in particular. Needless to say (if you are familiar especially with the late Vonnegut) there is not much to be optimistic about—other than music, and perhaps the few angels that are found scattered here and there in the world. The gloominess is sometimes overpowering, as Vonnegut acknowledges (perhaps he has experienced too much to be funny anymore; perhaps he has simply become a grump), but his concern for the world and the dogged humanism that has always marked Vonnegut is still there. And he is hardly wrong in his pessimism about the future of the world, or about about the self-destructiveness of human beings as a species, or about the great accumulation of power-hungry 'guessers' in government who are just as blind as the rest of us but who lack a steering conscience.

A Man Without a Country also includes one of the best diagrams ever, of Kafka's narrative arc:



It's the first time that I include an image in a Goodreads review. I had to.

Έχοντας διαβάσει και το Σφαγείο, η δεύτερη επαφή μου με τον Vonnegut, μου επιβεβαιώνει το απολαυστικό αιχμηρό της γραφής του. Που δεν είναι μυθιστόρημα, αλλά μαζεμένες οι προσωπικές απόψεις του δοσμένες καυστικά, με ιδιαίτερο χιούμορ, γεγονός που με κάνει για κάποιο λόγο, να τον φαντάζομαι να κάνει παρέα με τον Bukowski και τον Tom Robbins.
Θίγει πολλά θέματα, συμπυκνωμένα τόσο εύστοχα και σε λίγες μόνο σελίδες. Χωρίς φλυαρίες ή βαρύγδουπες εκφράσεις, που ούτε χρειάζονται, ούτε και του ταιριάζουν άλλωστε. Η πένα του βάζει κάτω σχεδόν τα πάντα: την ιστορία, την πολιτική, τη ζωή, τον θάνατο, την κοινωνία με τα καλώς και τα κακώς κείμενά της. Και το εκπληκτικό είναι ότι καταφέρνει να μιλάει και να κεντάει με το κεντρί του για όλα αυτά, σαν να παίρνει τον ρόλο του σοφού θείου Kurt που σου στρώνει τον δρόμο για τη ζωή.

what a smart man. I liked this book very much, wish he was still around to write more.

Evolution can go to hell as far as I am concerned. What a mistake we are. We have mortally wounded this sweet life-supporting planet—the only one in the whole Milky Way—with a century of transportation whoopee. Our government is conducting a war against drugs, is it? Let them go after petroleum. Talk about a destructive high! You put some of this stuff in your car and you can go a hundred miles an hour, run over the neighbor’s dog, and tear the atmosphere to smithereens. Hey, as long as we are stuck with being homo sapiens, why mess around? Let’s wreck the whole joint.

Gosto muito do tom acídulo característico das palestras e ensaios de Vonnegut. Estes então, publicados em fim de vida, são particularmente acutilantes, amargos e duros. E com justeza, já que visam diretamente uma humanidade que se vai esfumando por detrás de construtos sociais, tecnológicos e políticos que a afastam cada vez mais da sua própria natureza:

Bill Gates says,“Wait till you can see what your computer can become.” But it’s you who should be doing the becoming, not the damn fool computer. What you can become is the miracle you were born to be through the work that you do.

E se a voz de Vonnegut parece a de um velho rezingão, isso não é por acaso. O escritor adotou, ao longo da vida, uma postura de crítico, uma espécie de papel de Velho do Restelo norte-americano, mas um Velho do Restelo (cheio de razão) com um sentido se humor engenhoso, capaz de nos deixar de lágrimas nos olhos, mortos de riso perante as nossas próprias fraquezas. Um riso profundo e sombrio, mas catártico e libertador:

I am going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes, for a billion bucks! Starting when I was only twelve years old, I have never chain-smoked anything but unfiltered Pall Malls. And for many years now, right on the package, Brown and Williamson have promised to kill me. But I am now eighty-two. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon.(...)I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.

Essa postura, única no tempo e espaço em que Vonnegut habitou (e espaço e tempo ficam muito evidentes nestes ensaios), impregna cada um dos parágrafos deste livro. E mesmo que não concorde com todas as suas afirmações, posicionamentos éticos e políticos, de vez em quando aprecio a sua voz como uma ligeira admoestação para não esquecer que tudo isto é passageiro, que a vida não passa, a vida voa, e que há valores maiores que, nem que seja de vez em quando (a hipocrisia diria sempre), devem reger os nossos atos e pensamentos. Mas, sobretudo, aprecio a sua voz por me lembrar que, com um bocadinho de humor, até as coisas mais negras se aligeiram um pouco (só um pouco):

I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, “Isaac is up in heaven now.” It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, “Kurt is up in heaven now.” That’s my favorite joke.

Vonnegut's mixture of ranting and moralising is just what you'd expect to love from a leading humanist of the era. If you like Vonnegut, then you'll love this.